Robert Smith

And I actually think there's something interesting in the fact that these two guys remember this so differently because it speaks to this divide between venture capitalists and founders that persist today, right?

And the question is, what is venture capital really doing?

A lot of founders will say, oh, they're just putting up the money.

And most of the venture capitalists will be like, no, no, these are guys who don't know what they're doing.

We're putting up the money.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

And so...

I don't know what happened in this case, but whatever was the case, a buyer from Sears did come out to Atari one day in April of 1975, showed up at 8 a.m.

And of course, nobody from Atari is in the office yet.

But eventually, Bushnell and the others show up.

They let the Sears buyer play with their Pong prototype.

It's fun, you know.

Bushnell gives him a sales pitch.

Bushnell's a great salesman.

And the Sears guy wants in.

And he asked Atari, how many of these home video game devices can you make for this year's Christmas shopping season?

It's April, right?

It's April.

At this point, Atari has made zero of these home machines.